Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Don Blankenship Can Buy West Virginia, But He Can't Buy America

Dylan Matthews has a detailed post on the union-busting, environment-ruining, cameraman-threatening ways of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, 25 of whose workers just died in a mine explosion. The news:

West Virginians overwhelmingly oppose mountaintop removal mining, and some politicians, like Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. Nick Rahall, openly criticize Massey. But the effects are limited, as Blankenship has more or less purchased the state's government. He's certainly bought the state Supreme Court, spending millions to unseat a justice who had ruled in favor of mine workers. The court, including the new justice Blankenship had elected, soon thereafter reversed a $50 million judgment against Massey. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually had to demand a rehearing of the case with the new justice recusing himself, because the quid pro quo involved was so obvious. Similarly, when Gov. Joe Manchin proposed a bond not to Blankenship's liking, the businessman spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to sink it. After the bond vote, Blankenship sued Manchin, saying the governor's attempts to regulate Massey amounted to punishment of Blankenship for opposing the bond measure, and thus was a violation of his free speech rights.

The federal government may have its corruption and special interest problems. But here's one nice thing about Washington: it costs so much that Don Blankenship can't buy it all. At present, even West Virginia's federal legislators, Nick Rahall and Robert Byrd, have been dissing on him. Maybe if he had to focus all his energies on getting their support, he'd make some headway, but even so he wouldn't have as much control over his regulatory fate as he does with the locals in Charleston.

This is one reason why it's a lot better to see the federal government in charge of labor and environmental regulations than the states. Dylan talks about campaign finance restrictions in the post, and if there's some way to make those work, great. But another way to deal with the problem is to take the responsibility for protecting workers and the environment out of the hands of people who are in Don Blankenship's pocket.

who we are

Nicholas Beaudrot is an accidental political observer living in Seattle, Washington. By day he writes software for Amazon.com, snowboards, and plays ultimate frisbee. By night [and morn] he posts to this blog, runs the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, and tries to cook decent Italian cuisine. A graduate of Brown University with a joint degree in Mathematics-Computer Science, in late 2003 Nicholas felt the urge to put his knack with numbers towards a greater social purpose than winning his fantasy baseball league or taking up poker, perhaps in an act of penance for not voting in 2000. He has been spotted standing in line for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, on the Atlanta area quiz bowl program "Hi-Q", and as a young boy in national broadcasts of the Christmas Eve service at the Cathedral of Saint Philip. If you play Halo 3, Team Fortress II, Rock Band 2, Catan, or a number of other games, he's on Xbox live as niq24601.

Neil Sinhababu is a philosophy professor at the National University of Singapore. It's a tropical island with good public transit and they're very nice about not caning him. He's fond of red-state college towns like Austin, where he got his PhD. Much of his research is in ethics — hence his alias "Neil the Ethical Werewolf," which contains the name of his philosophy blog. He has also published on Nietzsche and on how to have a girlfriend in another universe. His utilitarianism shapes his goals and tactical views, and makes it impossible for him to stay away from politics. At Harvard, he won a student government election by eating fire in each dorm room in his district. He'd be happy to use this skill to help Democrats in tough races. He likes drinking with smart people and dancing in altogether ridiculous ways. At his last project, War or Car, he showed that you could buy each US household a Prius or each panda a stealth bomber for the price of the Iraq War.